Description

This book offers a new appraisal of the ancestry and career of Godfrey of Bouillon (c.1060-1100), a leading participant in the First Crusade (1096-99), and the first ruler of Latin Jerusalem (1099-1100), the polity established by the crusaders after they captured the Holy City. While previous studies of Godfrey’s life have tended to focus on his career from the point at which he joined the crusade, this book adopts a more holistic approach, situating his involvement in the expedition in the light of the careers of his ancestors and his own activities in Lotharingia, the westernmost part of the kingdom of Germany. The findings of this enquiry shed new light on the repercussions of a range of critical developments in Latin Christendom in the eleventh and early twelfth centuries, including the impact of the ‘Investiture Conflict’ in Lotharingia, the response to the call for the First Crusade in Germany, Godfrey’s influence upon the course of the crusade, his role in its leadership, and his activities during the initial phases of Latin settlement in the Holy Land in its aftermath.

Table of Contents

Introduction

1 - Ancestry and parentage

Lotharingia and its place in the Western Empire

Godfrey’s maternal ancestry: the house of Ardennes-Bouillon

The career of Godfrey the Bearded

The career of Godfrey the Hunchback

Godfrey’s parents: Count Eustace II and Ida of Boulogne

2 - Godfrey’s career in the West, c.1060-95

Godfrey’s early years and arrival in Lotharingia

The succession to the office of duke of Lower Lotharingia in 1076

Godfrey’s matrilineal inheritance

The military campaigns of Henry IV of Germany

Godfrey’s career as duke of Lower Lotharingia, 1087-1095

3 - The coming of the First Crusade, 1095-96

Pope Urban II’s call for the First Crusade

Godfrey’s response to the call for the First Crusade

Godfrey’s preparations for the First Crusade

4 - The First Crusade, 1096-99

Lotharingia to Constantinople, August - December 1096

Constantinople, December 1096 - April 1097

Asia Minor, May - October 1097

Antioch, October 1097 - June 1098

Impasse, June 1098 - May 1099

Jerusalem, May - July 1099

5 - In Jerusalem, 1099-1100

Godfrey’s appointment as ruler of Jerusalem, July 1099

Ruling Jerusalem

Godfrey’s death and the succession of Baldwin I

Conclusion

Epilogue - Godfrey’s reputation in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries

Bibliography

Index

About the Author

Simon John is Lecturer in Medieval History at Swansea University. He previously taught at the University of Oxford, and held a Junior Research Fellowship at the Institute of Historical Research. Much of his work to date has focussed upon the crusades and their socio-cultural impact in Latin Christendom. He has published articles in the English Historical Review, the Journal of MedievalHistory and the Journal of Ecclesiastical History, and is the co-editor (with Nicholas Morton) of Crusading and Warfare in the Middle Ages: Realities and Representations. Essays in Honour of John France (2014).

About the Series

Academics concerned with the history of the Crusades and the Latin East will be familiar with the various survey histories that have been produced for this fascinating topic. Many historians have published wide-ranging texts that either seek to make sense of the strange phenomenon that was the Crusades or shed light upon the Christian territories of the Latin East. Such panoramic works have helped to generate enormous interest in this subject, but they can only take their readers so far. Works addressing the lives of individual rulers - whether kings, queens, counts, princes or patriarchs - are less common and yet are needed if we are to achieve a more detailed understanding of this period.

This series seeks to address this need by stimulating a collection of political biographies of the men and women who ruled the Latin East between 1098 and 1291 and the kingdom of Cyprus up to 1571. These focus in detail upon the evolving political and diplomatic events of this period, whilst shedding light upon more thematic issues such as: gender and marriage, intellectual life, kingship and governance, military history and inter-faith relations.

For further information about the series please contact Michael Greenwood at Michael.Greenwood@informa.com